65daysofstatic

Wild Light - Excellent, Based on 9 Critics

Rock Sound - 90Based on rating 9/10

90

From beyond the ceaseless white noise of day-to-day existence, 65daysofstatic transport you to another world, another realm, where the abstract becomes commonplace and the ethereal becomes tangible. As you’re absorbed into the all-encompassing, warm, genuflecting glow of ‘Heat Death Infinity Splitter’, your mind is awoken to hitherto undiscovered plains of mental existence, as you voyage on a journey of unimaginable scope and vision. Short of any psychotropic assistance, ‘Wild Light’ is a credible substitute for nirvana, demanding you suspend your disbelief and just jump in feet first, setting yourself free from all corporeal existence.

There’s a moment during the climax of Wild Light’s opening track Heat Death Infinity Splitter where the roaring, squealing feedback of guitar noise attempts to gatecrash the progression of the already-in-progress solemn synth-death march. There’s a short pause… and the synths charge back in like a boxer pumped up and responding aggressively from taking an unexpected shot to the head. They swamp the guitars and thunder on towards the conclusion.

In closing their last album proper – 2010’s We Were Exploding Anyway - 65daysofstatic threw just about everything at the wall. A ten minute distillation of all conceivable elements associated with 65’s particular wheelhouse, ‘Tiger Girl’ didn’t truly kick in until halfway through (natch) when the arpeggiator switched on, priming the usual crescendo expectation. If one wished to be cruel, they could label the track a meticulous box-ticking exercise, but it’s much too dynamic to be dismissed in such a manner.

Since their 2004 debut, The Fall of Math, Sheffield post-rock outfit 65daysofstatic have edged further and further into the realms of electronic music, supplementing their engulfing melodies and guitar work with synths, loops, and pulsing beats as their sound has expanded. Here on their sixth release, Wild Light, the band bring together these different elements seamlessly, and produce an album of epic proportions that combines meticulously arranged cinematic soundscapes with textured electronics. The emotive power of this record is driven by the flourishing guitars and in "Blackspots," they build perfectly into a restrained explosion of melodic hooks, providing a cathartic conclusion to the song.

What is post-rock if it doesn’t keep forging into the future? Sheffield’s ever-progressive 65daysofstatic have outdone themselves here, loading their fifth album of megaton guitar instrumentals with electronic styles. If ‘Blackspots’ recalls Explosions In The Sky, it could also pass for big beat, while ‘Prisms’ merges Crystal Castles’ digi-hardcore with the serene instrumental complexity of Tortoise. Then there’s ‘Safe Passage’, which resembles Mogwai’s take on Tiesto’s arena rave.

A month or so ago, Paul Wolinski of 65daysofstatic told DIY ‘Wild Light’ was a much more accessible, restrained and composed record than the band’s back catalogue. He also said that didn’t really matter anyway because whatever the band tried to create, it would always get dragged through “some scuzzy 65daysofstatic filter or whatever”. It’s not industry standard to rely on the band’s own review of their album, but Wolinski’s onto something here.From the opener ‘Heat Death Infinity Splitter’ (of course), Wild Light is accessible, catchy almost, yet retains the dark tension 65dos lace their music with.

opinion byBRENDAN FRANK Poverty, disease, environmental destruction, deep-rooted corruption – there’s a lot going on in the world to freak out about. 65daysofstatic are out to prove that that even what seems hopeless can be uplifting it catches the light the right way. Paul Wolinski, Joe Shrewsbury, Rob Jones and Simon Wright have been a band just long enough to see the tragic complexity of the new millennium unfold in real time.

Since making their mark with The Fall of Math almost a decade ago, 65daysofstatic’s strongest suit has been their uncanny ability to constantly surprise their audience. Fans of their first record might, in places, have struggled to identify 2010?s We Were Exploding Anyway as the work of the same band; a collaboration with The Cure’s Robert Smith and the ten-minute, dance-infused closer, ‘Tiger Girl’, were signs of the Sheffield outfit becoming increasingly detached from the math rock sound that defined their early efforts. Their latest, Wild Light, arrives more than three years since their last, unless you count (and you should) the original score for Silent Running that’s been occupying their attention in the interim.

Sheffield's 65daysofstatic are forever challenging themselves, tinkering with new ways to meld skyscraping electronic melodies with powerful rock instrumentation. After working on their last full-length, 2010's We Were Exploding Anyway, the band put out the Silent Running soundtrack, inspired by a live re-score they did for the 1972 sci-fi production in 2011. While We Were Exploding...